4 ms·

My issue with the list is that we're increasing the harm associated with the words in the list. If we perpetuate the story that people are harmed, and introduce

My issue with the list is that we're increasing the harm associated with the words in the list. If we perpetuate the story that people are harmed, and introduce new harmful associations that most people don't have, then we're broadening the blast radius ( oh sorry sphere of effect ). The stories we tell ourselves matter, and I don't see why everyone has to tell the most pessimistic, helpless story possible when these words come up by believing that harm is inevitable for each word on this (or any) list. If we really need to police (sorry, regulate) language this much an alternative narrative would be that "these words are embarrassing for the speaker because they may appear old fashioned or niche".

colpabar 4y ago
This is the biggest issue with this list in my opinion. We are teaching kids to be offended by things they wouldn't think twice about.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  And this does two kinds of damage. Some kids will end up actually becoming vulnerable to things they otherwise wouldn't - this is just needlessly increasing the sum total of suffering in the world. But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others.
  - colpabar 4y ago
    And it'll just get worse when these kids grow up and become academics and make these lists even more overbearing. This is a stretch but I really don't have a hard time imagining a world where professors have to have a minimum amount of political pins/patches/posters/etc ("flair" a la "Office Space") to keep their jobs. Because as we all know, silence is violence. The more of this we normalize for children, the worse it'll get as they grow up and do the same.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Exactly right. And what irks me, is that I feel that we've seen this before (or at least read about it): even if it's not the same, it rhymes with what's been happening around the world for most of the 20th century. The methods of psychologically forcing people to eschew logic and rational thought, and submit to a half-baked ideology instead, are pretty much the same - even if it's not state-sponsored and nobody is pulling guns just yet. I don't think people pushing this insanity (err, wild thing) realize how close they are in methods to the historical groups and present-day boogeypeople they claim to oppose.
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      Oh, we're already there. When applying for jobs at many universities, you have to include a "diversity statement" https://careerservices.upenn.edu/application-materials-for-the-faculty-job-search/diversity-statements-for-faculty-job-applications/ https://careerservices.upenn.edu/application-materials-for-t...
    - throw__away7391 4y ago
      I grew up in a very oppressive, very controlling cult. They made heavy use of control over language to exert psychological pressure on people and it was exactly like this, 100%. You could identify who was a member and who wasn't by these weird little phrases people would use. Each phrase had a story behind it, usually about what a horrible person you supposedly were in some way (for which the fix was the submitting to the church's doctrine of course).
  - xkcd-sucks 4y ago
    > But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others. Tbf this seems baked in to human development, some children just love enforcing authorities' rules and tattling on other children
    - colpabar 4y ago
      I agree. Which is why lists like this should be outright rejected - they will inevitably be abused.
golemotron 4y ago
There's a lot of silliness in college that goes away when you get your first job and have to take on more consequential and realistic priorities. We've had bubble over the past 20 years where big tech companies and news organizations have indulged the silliness internally to reduce friction for the graduates they hire but that is drying up with the economic downturn. We're reverting to the mean.
- rhino369 4y ago
  People have said that for 15 years now. But these people run HR departments in virtually every medium sized and up organization in America.
trident5000 4y ago
This whole movement is just about control and power over other people - from people who have no control in their life and desperately want it. If they tell you that you cant say a word, and you abide, it gives them power over you and that stokes their ego. Its the same with pronouns. Its just an avenue to bully people and tell them what to do. At first it was somewhat reasonable, and now its just hijacked by selfish people who are making the whole thing crazier every day.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Damn, the really bizarre uncomfortable hacker news browsers are really out in force on this one. Hopefully they never try to gather all in one place, the smell would be unbearable.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    I think the comment you were replying to was going to doom itself, you probably didn't need to insult the whole community.
    - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
      There's a lot of weird transphobia going on in this thread fam. It's pretty clear a lot of people who post here are deeply uncomfortable people on this site. If our "community" is so good, expecting more respect and care for the groups who were unironically targeted by Hitler is a pretty solid start
      - trident5000 4y ago
        Someone pointing out a perspective on the topic and then calling that person the classic "hitler" is why you're getting a lot of broad backlash these days. Instead of insulting someone for an opinion, maybe try making a counter point thats on topic and relevant to the comment? I know its tiring to have a conversation on the issue and its easier to attack people but thats how discussion goes.
runarberg 4y ago
Is this only your feeling or has there been any psychological research to back up this feeling. There has been extensive research into PTSD and other trauma syndromes. If what you are saying is true, then surely some psychological research has at least explored the possibility of the phenomena.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  I don't think a question about evidence or roots of my assumptions is a bad one. I'm basing my assertions on my experience with Meditation, Cognitive behavioral therapy, and similar things. From my understanding, mental health is severely damaged by negative internal narratives, and CBT and meditation attack (sorry, treat) these negative internal associations and narratives directly, and produce reliable positive interventions for PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc. Check out Happiness Hypothesis for a thorough grounding on all these statements. In this case, I'm suggesting that by focusing on harm, and introducing new harmful associations with otherwise benign words, we're circumventing the intent of the speaker, and introducing the negative narrative. It's like reverse CBT. Here's info on CBT: https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cognitive-behavioral https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cog... (Seriously, look at that page and tell me that "identifying all possible negative associations, cataloging them, and relying on collective authority to minimize harm to self" is a helpful psychological strategy) And yes, there has been research that trigger warnings (sorry, content warnings) have the opposite effect -- they almost encourage people to feel anxiety over the content that follows. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harvard-professor-trigger-warnings-harmful-b1929535.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harvard-pr... That is why I believe that the story we tell ourselves about an event is actually more harmful than the event itself in most cases.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    Thank you. This answers my question adequately
    - jvanderbot 4y ago
gorwell 4y ago
This is why we should have rejected changing master to main. No one was offended by that in the first place! They created the problem and negative association entirely out of thin air. But we accepted it, updated our tooling, retrained our muscle memory from git checkout master to git checkout main to appease them. We gave them a taste of power and they're going to keep exercising it until meeting sufficient resistance. Enough people need to call it out and say No. It shouldn't be that hard. This is a small power drunk group that's colonizing the language. Point it out. No one gets to dictate our language from the top down.
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago
  "It's just 25 cents..."
- throw__away7391 4y ago
  I was bullied at work for rejecting this. Actually not even so much for rejecting it, just saying that if we were going to do it that we should not to make such a big, self-congratulatory public statement about on our company blog. I'm the "CI/CD guy" (sorry, person) and so far I'd guess I've spent about 40 hours fixing builds as a result of this change, pretty much always unexpectedly. Every time this happens I feel burned again.
  - ur-whale 4y ago
    > I was bullied at work for rejecting this. Good: what you call bullying is what people from an older generation would have called the start of a robust and healthy conversation about why playing along with PC crap is bad for everyone.

colpabar 4y ago

This is the biggest issue with this list in my opinion. We are teaching kids to be offended by things they wouldn't think twice about.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
And this does two kinds of damage. Some kids will end up actually becoming vulnerable to things they otherwise wouldn't - this is just needlessly increasing the sum total of suffering in the world. But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others.
- colpabar 4y ago
  And it'll just get worse when these kids grow up and become academics and make these lists even more overbearing. This is a stretch but I really don't have a hard time imagining a world where professors have to have a minimum amount of political pins/patches/posters/etc ("flair" a la "Office Space") to keep their jobs. Because as we all know, silence is violence. The more of this we normalize for children, the worse it'll get as they grow up and do the same.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Exactly right. And what irks me, is that I feel that we've seen this before (or at least read about it): even if it's not the same, it rhymes with what's been happening around the world for most of the 20th century. The methods of psychologically forcing people to eschew logic and rational thought, and submit to a half-baked ideology instead, are pretty much the same - even if it's not state-sponsored and nobody is pulling guns just yet. I don't think people pushing this insanity (err, wild thing) realize how close they are in methods to the historical groups and present-day boogeypeople they claim to oppose.
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    Oh, we're already there. When applying for jobs at many universities, you have to include a "diversity statement" https://careerservices.upenn.edu/application-materials-for-the-faculty-job-search/diversity-statements-for-faculty-job-applications/ https://careerservices.upenn.edu/application-materials-for-t...
  - throw__away7391 4y ago
    I grew up in a very oppressive, very controlling cult. They made heavy use of control over language to exert psychological pressure on people and it was exactly like this, 100%. You could identify who was a member and who wasn't by these weird little phrases people would use. Each phrase had a story behind it, usually about what a horrible person you supposedly were in some way (for which the fix was the submitting to the church's doctrine of course).
- xkcd-sucks 4y ago
  > But some other kids will figure out the same thing people pushing for and enforcing such lists have: that this gives them power over others. Tbf this seems baked in to human development, some children just love enforcing authorities' rules and tattling on other children
  - colpabar 4y ago
    I agree. Which is why lists like this should be outright rejected - they will inevitably be abused.

golemotron 4y ago

There's a lot of silliness in college that goes away when you get your first job and have to take on more consequential and realistic priorities. We've had bubble over the past 20 years where big tech companies and news organizations have indulged the silliness internally to reduce friction for the graduates they hire but that is drying up with the economic downturn. We're reverting to the mean.

rhino369 4y ago
People have said that for 15 years now. But these people run HR departments in virtually every medium sized and up organization in America.

trident5000 4y ago

This whole movement is just about control and power over other people - from people who have no control in their life and desperately want it. If they tell you that you cant say a word, and you abide, it gives them power over you and that stokes their ego. Its the same with pronouns. Its just an avenue to bully people and tell them what to do. At first it was somewhat reasonable, and now its just hijacked by selfish people who are making the whole thing crazier every day.

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
Damn, the really bizarre uncomfortable hacker news browsers are really out in force on this one. Hopefully they never try to gather all in one place, the smell would be unbearable.
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  I think the comment you were replying to was going to doom itself, you probably didn't need to insult the whole community.
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    There's a lot of weird transphobia going on in this thread fam. It's pretty clear a lot of people who post here are deeply uncomfortable people on this site. If our "community" is so good, expecting more respect and care for the groups who were unironically targeted by Hitler is a pretty solid start
    - trident5000 4y ago
      Someone pointing out a perspective on the topic and then calling that person the classic "hitler" is why you're getting a lot of broad backlash these days. Instead of insulting someone for an opinion, maybe try making a counter point thats on topic and relevant to the comment? I know its tiring to have a conversation on the issue and its easier to attack people but thats how discussion goes.

runarberg 4y ago

Is this only your feeling or has there been any psychological research to back up this feeling. There has been extensive research into PTSD and other trauma syndromes. If what you are saying is true, then surely some psychological research has at least explored the possibility of the phenomena.

jvanderbot 4y ago
I don't think a question about evidence or roots of my assumptions is a bad one. I'm basing my assertions on my experience with Meditation, Cognitive behavioral therapy, and similar things. From my understanding, mental health is severely damaged by negative internal narratives, and CBT and meditation attack (sorry, treat) these negative internal associations and narratives directly, and produce reliable positive interventions for PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc. Check out Happiness Hypothesis for a thorough grounding on all these statements. In this case, I'm suggesting that by focusing on harm, and introducing new harmful associations with otherwise benign words, we're circumventing the intent of the speaker, and introducing the negative narrative. It's like reverse CBT. Here's info on CBT: https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cognitive-behavioral https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cog... (Seriously, look at that page and tell me that "identifying all possible negative associations, cataloging them, and relying on collective authority to minimize harm to self" is a helpful psychological strategy) And yes, there has been research that trigger warnings (sorry, content warnings) have the opposite effect -- they almost encourage people to feel anxiety over the content that follows. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harvard-professor-trigger-warnings-harmful-b1929535.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/harvard-pr... That is why I believe that the story we tell ourselves about an event is actually more harmful than the event itself in most cases.
- runarberg 4y ago
  Thank you. This answers my question adequately
  - jvanderbot 4y ago

gorwell 4y ago

This is why we should have rejected changing master to main. No one was offended by that in the first place! They created the problem and negative association entirely out of thin air. But we accepted it, updated our tooling, retrained our muscle memory from git checkout master to git checkout main to appease them. We gave them a taste of power and they're going to keep exercising it until meeting sufficient resistance. Enough people need to call it out and say No. It shouldn't be that hard. This is a small power drunk group that's colonizing the language. Point it out. No one gets to dictate our language from the top down.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago
"It's just 25 cents..."
throw__away7391 4y ago
I was bullied at work for rejecting this. Actually not even so much for rejecting it, just saying that if we were going to do it that we should not to make such a big, self-congratulatory public statement about on our company blog. I'm the "CI/CD guy" (sorry, person) and so far I'd guess I've spent about 40 hours fixing builds as a result of this change, pretty much always unexpectedly. Every time this happens I feel burned again.
- ur-whale 4y ago
  > I was bullied at work for rejecting this. Good: what you call bullying is what people from an older generation would have called the start of a robust and healthy conversation about why playing along with PC crap is bad for everyone.